Science journalist, Photographer, Musician

A TV public relations campaign is set to air at the beginning of February. The ad campaign sponsored by Avaaz.org is set to demand that G8 leaders put climate change, or global warming as we used to call it in pre-euphemistic times, at the top of the next Summit agenda in June.

Avaaz says this is the first such advocacy campaign and will demonstrate how citizens of every country might take the necessary concerted action on urgent global problems, such as climate change, poverty, and the Middle East crisis to persuade world leaders of the need for decisive steps towards finding solutions. The organisation anticipates a campaign launch with 880,000 participants from 168 countries.

“Our political leaders are moving at sluggish pace as we approach a point of no return in global warming” said Ricken Patel, the Canadian-British Director of Avaaz.org. “Global public opinion has been called the ‘new superpower’, but there is a huge gap between the world that most people want, and the world we have. The lack of action on climate change is a powerful example of that gap, and Avaaz.org will work to close it.”

Climate change is not a new issue, it’s not forty years ago that we were being warned that we were heading for a global ice age, we have had poverty ever since the first human traded an animal skin for food, and the crisis in the Middle East is as old as the cradle of civilization itself.

Can global citizens really stand up and be counted when it comes to such political activities? Or, are we doomed to repeat the same errors we see throughout history again and again?